The Cattle King's Bride

by Margaret Way

  “Standing on my own two feet is central to everything.” Mel tried to defend herself.

  “But I applaud it, Mel,” he cried in utter exasperation. “That’s what you can’t seem to grasp. I’m proud of you and how clever you are. You’d be a big asset to Langdon Enterprises, if you ever left Greshams. Anyone would think we were in competition, the way you behave. I don’t understand what it is you want me to be. I can’t grapple with all your expectations of the perfect man. I’m me. Far from perfect. Sometimes I think you’re actually frightened of me. Not in a physical sense. You know I would never hurt you. But you do have this huge problem with male domination.”

  God knew it was true. “I grew up with it, didn’t I, this little satellite orbiting a giant tyrannical figure. Your grandfather carried domination to the extreme. Always the iron fist.”

  “For goodness’ sake, Mel,” Dev protested, “he was himself. Stronger, cleverer, tougher than anyone else.”

  “You might be describing yourself.” Mel shook her head bleakly.

  Dev showed his fast-rising temper. “Now you’re making me really angry. What is it you want me to be, Mel? Do you even know? I can’t figure it out and I’ve come at it from every angle. As far as I can see, your biggest problem is you. Your exaggerated need for independence, self-reliance, like you don’t need a man, as though a man could break you. I’m telling you it’s paranoia!”

  “Okay, maybe it is!” Pressure was expanding inside her, building up a huge head of steam. There were always bottled-up forces ready to explode when they came together, a consequence of their shared troubled history and her mother’s illicit position in Gregory Langdon’s life. “Let’s stop now, Dev,” she said more quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

  He sat down again, bending his blond head almost to his knees. “And I don’t want to argue with you. But you are one strange woman, Mel.”

  “I expect I am,” she said in a haunted voice. “You know your place in the world, Dev. All I know is I grew up without a father and a father’s love and wisdom. What I know about my mother wouldn’t fill half a page in a child’s exercise book. She’s the only child of Italian parents, Francis and Adriana Cavallaro, who migrated to Australia and settled in Sydney. It has a large Italian and Italian-descent population. There was no other family. My mother left home, a bit like Ava, to escape her father’s very strict control. I never got to know any of my family. God knows why she decided to shift as far away as North Queensland. That’s a long haul.”

  “Do we even know if that’s true?” Dev muttered. “I wouldn’t put it past your mother to have been wearing an impenetrable disguise all these years. When she came to Kooraki no one would have questioned her background. Where she came from would have been considered irrelevant. She was simply Mike Norton’s young wife.”

  “Terrible to think my mother’s past could be an invention, a construct of lies. I hate blacked out spaces, secrets.”

  “Tell me about it,” Dev said. “Most families have them. You are letting them plague you to death. You have to make a leap of faith. Faith in me. Your mother has her story but it’s obvious she doesn’t want you to know it, even if it would offer you comfort.”

  She gave him a despairing look. “Was her home life so bad she simply had to run away? Did she cast off her past like a snake sloughs off its skin? My dad would have known. But he’s not around to tell me,” she said with the deepest regret.

  “One day your mother might confide in you, Mel.” Dev tried to offer comfort, but he had no faith whatsoever in Sarina Norton, whom he knew as a devious woman and most likely an accomplished spinner of lies. “She’s a secretive woman without your strengths. But she had no difficulty conning men into thinking they needed to protect her.” He hadn’t intended saying that. It just sprang out. His own view was that men needed protection from Sarina Norton.

  “Con? Did you say con?” Mel asked, midway between wrath and shock.

  “I did and that’s my theory,” Dev shot back unapologetically.

  Mel was severely taken aback. Dev had never spoken harshly of her mother.

  “Give it a bit of thought, Mel. Your mother is a born actress. If she’d made it to the big screen she would have won an award.”

  “What, playing the role of conning men?”

  “I can’t think of anyone better,” Dev said bluntly. “Didn’t you ever watch her with the male staff? In fact any man that moved across her path.”

  Mel looked back at him, stunned. “What is this, Dev? Payback time? I didn’t realize you so disliked my mother.”

  His expression hardened. “On the subject of your mother it pays to keep my mouth shut. I’ve never been out to hurt you, Mel.”

  Disturbing thoughts were sweeping into her mind. “But she thinks the world of you, Dev. How could you attack her, unless she tried to con you?” It didn’t seem possible.

  Dev picked a non-existent thread from his shirt. “Cons don’t go down well with me, Mel.”

  “What sort of an answer is that?”

  “Are we going to have a problem with it?” he asked in a decidedly edgy voice.

  Not, she realized, unless she was prepared to launch into an all-out fight. “Did it help or harm her, do you suppose, the fact that she was so beautiful?” Mel asked, always looking for some way to unravel the mystery that was her mother.

  “Hell, she still is.” There was a harsh note in Dev’s voice. “Beautiful women have a lot of power. You know that. You have to accept your mother’s nature, Mel. I know you wanted her to come live with you, but the reality was she wanted to stay on Kooraki.”

  Mel responded with real grief. “She chose Kooraki over me. She chose your grandfather over me, a man old enough to be her father, but what the hell? He was anything but your average bloke.” With a defeated sigh, she picked up the laden tray. Dev stood up to take it from her, setting it down on the coffee table.

  She let him eat in peace. She had poured two coffees. Now she sat opposite him, sipping at hers, the rich aroma tantalizing her nostrils and soothing her.

  “That was good!” he exclaimed in satisfaction when he was finished. “I haven’t had anything since around ten this morning.”

  “Why is Mum so set on my attending?’

  “Why are you so set against it?”

  “All your grandfather thinks he has to do is give the order and we all fall into line. Well, most of us do,” she said wryly. “Not you, of course, even when you were told you were being cut out of his will.”

  “Big deal!” Dev exclaimed. “I was prepared to risk it. I never felt good about telling my grandfather to go to hell, Mel. It was just something that had to be said. And there’s another thing. Whether he meant it or not, he broke Dad’s spirit.”

  “I can’t understand why your father never stood up to him.”

  Dev’s brief laugh was without humour. “Not everyone is a born fire-eater, Mel. Besides, he had to contend with a double whammy. Between my grandfather and my grandmother, Dad had a rough ride. My mother tolerated the situation as long as she could before she had to take off. Self-preservation. I used to dream of her coming back. Poor Ava was the worst affected. But at least we see our mother now. The truly amazing thing is they’re still married. Neither of them filed for divorce. Both could have found new partners in record time.”

  “I expect your grandfather forbade it.”

  “Maybe he did.” Dev shrugged. “He might have stopped Dad, but not Mum. She broke free. My parents should have moved away from Kooraki after they were married. They should have had a home of their own. I remember they were happy once. I believe they still have strong feelings for one another.”

  Mel thought so, too. “Will your mother come?”

  Dev nodded. “If Gregory dies, there’ll be the funeral.”

  “Is Ava happy?” Mel asked. Lovely, graceful Ava, the granddaughter shoved into the background.

  Dev gave a brotherly howl of anguish. “We both know Ava chose marriage
as a way out. She had no real idea of what she was letting herself in for. She always claims she’s happy, but I don’t accept that. If I ever found out that husband of hers was ill-treating her in any way—not physically. He wouldn’t dare—but trying to browbeat her, he’d better look out. And that’s a promise.”

  Mel had no doubts about that. She stood up. “For your information, I did intend to go, Dev. I’m as good as packed. I’ll have to cancel my morning flight.”

  “Better do it now,” he said, rising to his feet and carrying the tray back into the kitchen. “I’m not exactly sure where I’m to sleep. Obviously the master bedroom is verboten. No need to lock the door, by the way. I don’t bother women.”

  “No. It’s generally the other way around.”

  “I’m a man like any other, Mel.” He gave her a sweeping glance out of his aquamarine eyes. “Even for you I can’t swear off sex entirely.” There was a sardonic twist to his handsome mouth.

  “No need to tell me,” she said with an acid edge. “Someone always manages to give me the latest gossip. I knew all about your little fling with Megan Kennedy.”

  “Megan knew what she was getting into,” he said, unperturbed. “We’re still friends.”

  She rounded on him, temper flashing. “Isn’t that lovely!” She hadn’t forgotten how fearfully upset she had been, how hard it had been to hide it. The “Megan” affair had been her worst case of jealousy yet. She had to remind herself she’d had her own little flings that were predestined to fail.

  “Might I remind you the pot can’t call the kettle black?” he said suavely. “Now, where do I sleep?”

  She waved an imperious arm. “There’s the second bedroom, as you well know. The bed is made up.”

  “You only have to call out if you get lonely, Mel.”

  “My head only has to touch the pillow and it’s lights out,” she assured him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Despite her claim, Mel lay awake with the full moon casting its light across her bedroom. Maybe it was the coffee that was keeping her awake? That was the easy answer. The real answer? How could she sleep with Dev just down the hall? She knew what her problem was. She was sexually frustrated, assailed by desires she couldn’t control with him around. She had to ask herself—could there possibly be another man in the world for her but James Devereaux Langdon?

  Restlessly, she kicked at the top sheet, freeing her feet. She punched the pillows yet again, then turned on her left side, only she wasn’t comfortable with the steady thud of her heart. Over to the right side, she checked the time. Twelve forty-five. She would be exhausted in the morning if she didn’t succeed in putting Dev and her body’s needs out of her mind. Ten minutes went by. Was there no way out of this? It was as though a tribal sorcerer had put a spell on her. There were one or two old sorcerers left on Kooraki. Magic and ritual with the Aboriginal people would never die out. Only she knew as well as anybody you couldn’t get everything you wanted in this world. She had wanted a career. She had one. She had gained the respect of her peers and notice from the hierarchy. She was earning really good money.

  You made a big mistake letting Dev stay.

  He knew exactly how to push her buttons.

  * * *

  In the guest bedroom Dev was having an even worse time of it, the area below his navel aflame. He was unbearably aroused. He wanted to get up and go down the hall to her. He gave a short frustrated laugh that he muffled against the pillow. The last thing he should do was put Mel under even more pressure, even if it was killing him keeping his hands off her. Why was it he never had a problem with other women, yet he had one big problem with Mel? He threw the top sheet off, trying to rein in emotions so driving they threatened to sweep away any misgivings. This constant pitch of desire he had for Amelia could be classed as a type of lunacy.

  His poor embattled grandmother had tried hard to convince him that Mel could have been Gregory’s daughter. It had upset him enormously at the time, but he had never really believed it. His gut told him not. And his gut was right. It was a pathetic and cruel attempt on his grandmother’s part to separate him from Mel. Yet he had understood his grandmother’s raging jealousy. His grandfather had lost his heart. But not to his lawfully wedded wife. It was there in his grandfather’s eyes every time he looked at Sarina.

  He had no idea when that love had been consummated. Perhaps after the tragic death of Mel’s father. Mike Norton had been a leading hand on Maru Downs, a North Queensland station in the Langdon chain. His grandfather’s normal practice was to visit all the stations and the outstations checking on operations. There he had met Sarina, Mike Norton’s beautiful young wife.

  His grandfather had offered Mike a job on Kooraki. No question Mike had been foreman material, well up to the job offered, but the intense allure of Norton’s young wife could have been the deciding factor. Was that what had happened? His grandfather had been a man of strong passions. Sexual passion had a way of not allowing its victims to escape.

  He should know.

  * * *

  Afterwards, she told herself she didn’t really remember walking down the corridor to Dev’s room. Maybe her mind was playing tricks, surrendering to a dream. It was not as though they didn’t know one another’s body intimately, but the thrill, the rapture, the sense of belonging had never lessened, never lost its power.

  * * *

  Dev heard the door handle turn. He swung onto his back, looking up to see Mel framed in the doorway. There was enough light from the full moon to see her clearly. She was wearing a pale coloured nightgown that shimmered like moonbeams.

  He sat up, startled, supporting himself on one elbow. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her dark head.

  “What is it, Mel?”

  She gave a little laugh that sounded like a sob. “I’m never okay. You know that.” She moved across the room, then sat on the side of his bed, staring into his eyes.

  “You can’t do this, Mel,” he protested, his whole body powerfully, painfully aroused.

  “I want to sleep with you,” she said, dragging the top sheet away from him. It exposed his naked hard-muscled chest with its tracery of golden hair.

  His voice held a tense warning. “You get into this bed and we’re going to have sex, Mel,” he said. “You know that. So don’t try the little-sister routine.”

  “No, no. I come to you for comfort, like I always used to.” She hesitated for a fraught moment, then said, “How long did we think we might be closely related, Dev?”

  He exploded, just as she knew he would. “For half a second! Well, me, anyway. Always the eternal anguish, Mel, the eternal question. You’d go to any lengths to drive me mad. Do you seriously believe I would have ever touched you had I believed it? Are you that crazy?”

  She shook her head in shame.

  “Am I supposed to give you a round of applause for that?”

  “Don’t be like that, Dev,” she begged. “There was so much gossip.”

  “Mireille’s poison.” His verdict was harsh. “She had a great talent for implying sinister, cruel lies. Jealousy is one of the most powerful deadly sins. It gets people murdered every day of the week.”

  “Poison finds its way into the bloodstream. My mother bewitched him.”

  Dev put his two hands to his head, groaning. “Okay, so she did! And hasn’t there been a tremendous emotional fall-out?” Angry and immensely frustrated, he put strong hands on her, pulling her down and then into the bed beside him. “Are we going to continue this interminable conversation?” He hooked one strong arm around her. “You, woman, drive me mad. I just want to draw a secure circle around the two of us so no one can get in. God knows we’ve lived our lives with controlling people. Both of us have resented it bitterly. As a consequence, you’re in retreat from me in case I turn into the biggest controller of them all.”

  Her laugh was woefully off-key. “Let’s face it, being the man in control is going to be your role, Dev. You’ll find that out when your gr
andfather’s will is read. Most of the time I was able to separate the truth from the sick rumours. But I was just a little kid, Dev. My father was dead. Mum and I had no protection from that all-important quarter. My father wouldn’t have stood for—”

  “I find the whole issue unbearable, Mel. I worry about you. You’re so clever, so seemingly confident, a beautiful woman. Anyone would say you’ve had the lot, yet a crucial part of you remains a lost little girl. Fragile.”

  “I am not!” she protested, hitting a hand to his shoulder.

  He caught her hand, kissed it. “Most people don’t see it. I do. So my grandfather and your mother loved one another. Is there anything wrong with love? Love might be madness, but it’s glorious, as well. Look at you and me. It takes a real man to put up with you. God knows my granddad didn’t get unconditional love and affection from my grandmother. She was the ultimate possessive woman. It helped to be an heiress in her own right. Gregory was her paid-for possession. She did pump a lot of her own money into Kooraki during the lean times.”

  “Then he married her for her money?”

  “Maybe he thought she was a lot more docile than she really was. He wouldn’t be the first man to take a wealthy bride. He sure isn’t going to be the last. Countless women marry for money, social position, security. Nothing much has changed from the old-style marriage of convenience. It still goes on. The odd thing is that a lot of the time it works better than the madly in love scenario. Like us.”

  Mel didn’t argue. She had observed that among her circle of high-flying friends. “I suppose neither side has high expectations of the other,” she offered in explanation.

  “For the life of me, I couldn’t do it,” Dev said. “But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life tippy-toeing around you, Mel. You reckon I’m a tough guy, right?”

  “Precisamente,” she said. “You’re already tycoonish.”